Three fire trucks blocked the traffic, and torrents of water streamed from fire hoses. Over the heads of the people on the street, Jason could see black smoke billowing from a top-floor window in a redbrick building on the corner.
He checked the street number on the nearest doorway. “The fire is in Restak’s building. I’m willing to bet it’s his apartment. They’re erasing the evidence.”
“With him in it?” Abbey asked.
“Good question.”
They pushed through the crowd. When they got to the front, they could see that the firefighters hadn’t been able to get the blaze under control. Flames shot through a broken window on the other wall of the building. Anything that Peter Restak had left behind was already incinerated.
Medusa was still one step ahead of them.
Abbey shook her head in frustration. “Are we done? Do we leave?”
“Not yet.” Jason’s stare went from face to face, studying the people watching the fire on the three corners surrounding the building. “Sometimes an arsonist likes to stay behind to make sure everything goes as planned.”
He saw no one suspicious in the crowd. Even so, his senses told him to linger.
Always trust what your instincts tell you. Your brain sees clues that you don’t.
Treadstone.
He led Abbey across the street behind the fire trucks. They could feel the heat of the fire blowing on their skin. More sirens whined in the distance, and overlapping emergency radios squawked around them. Police officers kept the crowd squeezed behind a makeshift barrier. Jason’s eyes tried to penetrate the sea of people, all of them moving, talking, blocking each other, making it nearly impossible to spot one single individual among all the others.
He saw something. But what?
There!
Halfway down the block, a cloud of vapor puffed from the recessed frame of a garage entrance, indicating that someone was hiding there, observing the fire. As Jason watched, the man stepped out far enough to offer a fleeting glimpse of his profile.
A long nose. A blond beard spreading over his neck and cheek like a weed.
“Restak,” Jason said. Then, as he observed the doorway, the Medusa operative stepped out of the recess, and Jason could see his head swinging their way. “Turn around,” he hissed to Abbey. “Fast!”
The two of them spun, letting the rubberneckers in the crowd fill in around them. If Restak looked, all he would see were their backs among dozens of other people on the sidewalk. Jason counted slowly in his head, giving the man time to assess his surroundings and make sure he was safe. One, two, three …
When Jason got to twenty, he twisted around and glanced down the street. Restak was walking east on Tenth, heading toward the river. He wore baggy black jeans and a blue-striped Baja poncho with the hood pulled up. Another vapor cloud trailed behind him.
“Wait here,” Jason told Abbey.
He took off after Restak. When he was past the fire, he crossed to the opposite side to make his pursuit less noticeable. Restak walked casually, seemingly unconcerned that he was being followed. The man reached Avenue D, where he was stopped by a red light. A group of kids played basketball in a fenced court near the corner, their voices loud. Bourne stopped, too, feeling exposed on a stretch of naked wall that offered no hiding place. Restak didn’t look back. He had his vape pen in his hand and looked pleased with himself.
The fire had done its work. He was free.
Then one of the kids on the court missed the basketball as it was passed to him, and the ball slammed into the fence with a loud clang. Startled, Restak dropped his vape pen on the sidewalk. He bent down to retrieve it, and as he picked it up, his gaze swept across the street and settled on Bourne.
Restak’s eyes widened in shock. Instantly, the Medusa hacker shot across Avenue D just as the light changed. Bourne took off, too, but he lost time dodging three cars that bolted through the red light. When he finally made it across the street, Restak already had a head start. The man raced east on Tenth past a series of drab brown apartment towers.
Jason ran, too. Restak looked back, spotting him, his eyes wild with fear. They ran in tandem for one more block, and Jason slowly closed the gap. Restak was about thirty feet away when the street dead-ended at the FDR, but the man didn’t even break stride as he leaped over the concrete barrier into the middle of the parkway.